About 10 Percent of Youth Report Smoking Hookah

MONDAY, July 2, 2018 -- About 10 percent of youth report smoking hookah, with smoking mainly occurring in the home environment, according to a study published online July 2 in Pediatrics.

Israel Agaku, D.M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and colleagues used data from the 2016 National Youth Tobacco Survey for 20,675 U.S. sixth- to 12th-graders to examine social dimensions of youth hookah smoking. Three dimensions were assessed: frequency of hookah smoking, places smoked, and descriptive social norms.

The researchers found that 10.5 percent of youth reported smoking hookah one or more times in their lifetime. Of these, 65.8, 26.3, and 7.9 percent were former, current occasional, and current frequent smokers, respectively. Overall, 59.3 percent of students overestimated the prevalence of hookah smoking in their grade. Female sex and peer hookah-smoking overestimation predicted current occasional smoking (adjusted odds ratios, 1.54 and 9.3, respectively). Living with a hookah smoker, speaking a second language other than English, and co-use of mentholated cigarettes or other flavored noncigarette tobacco products predicted current frequent smoking (adjusted odds ratios, 20.56, 2.17, 19.94, and 17.59, respectively). The top three places for smoking hookah were a friend's house, own house, or another family member's house (47.7, 31.8, and 20.8 percent, respectively).

"Home-tailored interventions that encourage voluntary smoke-free rules and warn about the dangers of social smoking could help denormalize hookah smoking," the authors write.